Saving You a Seat

This week, I welcome Melissa Clark to join us at the table. As an expert in all-things therapeutic and mental health, Melissa focuses specifically on anxiety, body issues and identity issues. Melissa also hosts the podcast Thrive: The Art of Living Free.

Melissa and I jump right into the mental health issues millions of people are facing, how the pandemic exacerbated mental health struggles, and how we can move towards living a more connected life. Honest and real, we talked about how when we unpack our baggage, we are able to connect in healthy ways and move forward on our journey to true healing.

Melissa and I share our own  experiences and why it is so important to take care of ourselves spiritually and mentally. In a world that feels more disconnected than ever, we hope this episode brings a light on the true impact emotional wellness has on us as individuals and as a society.

Here’s what we connect on:

• Why society is suffering from mental health issues and unraveling from the outside in, especially after the pandemic
• How we are all addicted or co-dependent to something or someone in our distracted numbing culture
• How practicing acceptance, openness and honesty in all relationships, starting with ourselves, can transform our most important connections
• How giving up control, surrendering and letting go of our “stuff” allows us to experience true freedom, healing and hope with God
• The power “seasons of silence” hold in self-connection, self-reflection and becoming more emotionally healthy and secure with ourselves and others

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Melissa, visit her at @melissaclarkcounseling on social media, melissaclarkcounseling.com and listen to Thrive everywhere podcasts can be streamed!

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Joining us at the table this week is Sarah Kroger, Christian recording artist Sarah’s work is some of my favorite and her new album, Light, transforms hearts and invites souls to the love of Christ.  Don’t miss the single, Belovedness, if you need a reminder of how lovable you are.

Sarah and I chat openly about our shared love for all-things-healing. Don’t miss our conversation around the courage it takes to heal and truly own what we push deep inside and avoid at all costs.  It is throughout the healing journey that Sarah and I come to understand that recovering our true self is exactly what God wants us to do.

By accepting who we are, including the things we are healing from, we allow ourselves to exist as the Lord truly made us to be.

Here’s what we connect on:

• Staying present in the moment, both big and small, even when it feels like distractions are ever-increasing
• How Sarah’s new release, What a Wonderful World, celebrates life’s most beautiful and magical moments
• How our Heavenly Father encourages us to own our belovedness, even when we feel most unlovable and lost
• How we must walk a truly vulnerable path to healing and self-love by giving our “stuff” to God and facing our pain head-on
• Keeping hope, feeling fulfilled,  and showing up for ourselves for ourselves even when it’s hardest

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Sarah, visit her on Instagram @skroger, online at sarahkroger.com, and stream her newest album, Light, on all streaming platforms. Listen to her latest release, What A Wonderful World here.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

This week, I am excited to welcome Matt Tebbe and Ben Sterke to the table. Matt and Ben are the cofounders of Gravity Leadership, an organization focused on transformational leadership and discipleship.  We chat about how in order to evolve we need more than a change in practice: we need a change in paradigm.

Through eight transformative axioms found in their book Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate a Robust Faith, Matt and Ben lay out a guide to connect with Christ that helps us be open more fully to God, ourselves, and others.  By putting on new glasses so to speak, we can embrace the healing and change God wants for our lives.

Matt, Ben and I dive into the important stuff:  letting go to accept God’s love, practicing self-honesty to invite healing, recovering (in many different ways) while walking a path of faith, and accepting ourselves and others for who they are – fully.

Here’s what we connect on:

• How to achieve connectedness, and not correctness, with God
• The healing power found in rigorous self-honesty
• Waking up to God, who is already here and present
• Learning that God shows up with unconditional love and acceptance in our messy reality, even when we aren’t able to show up for ourselves.
• Looking past shame, fear and doubt to see the truth about ourselves by trusting in God.
• How compassionate awareness, creative alignment and cooperative action are essential tools on our faith journey

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Gravity Leadership, visit them at gravityleadership.com, check out their book at gravityleadership.com/book and follow them on social media @gravityleadership.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

I am elated to host the lovely Megan Felton at our table this week! Megan is a proud Enneagram type 6 and the co-founder of the beauty and skincare platform Lionne. Megan started Lionne out of her own struggles with rosacea and frustration with the oversaturation of products available to her. Megan’s skincare advice has been featured in publications like Elle UK, Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Women’s Health - so she is the real deal y’all!

Recently, Megan spearheaded the voice for change in the beauty industry, after joining forces with other skincare gurus and taking on celebrities like Brad Pitt. We dive deep into the nitty-gritty truth of being an entrepreneur and how the Enneagram can be a huge tool in personal growth.

The Enneagram assessment is a tool that can truly open our eyes to things about ourselves we may have never known. Specifically, the Enneagram brings out the good, the bad, and the ugly that we know exists deep down, making us aware of everything that makes us uniquely ourselves. Harnessing the power of knowing more about ourselves through the Enneagram is a major step towards growth in all aspects of our lives and a key in unlocking true connection with both ourselves and others.

Here’s what we connect on:

• Connecting with reservoirs of resilience, hope and strength by using the Enneagram (6:06)
• Keeping boundaries between personal and professional life as an entrepreneur (12:13)
• Megan shares a beautiful (and true!) story about courage and standing for what you believe in, even if it means standing up to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars (18:25)
• Bringing awareness to how oversaturated the beauty industry is today and how to find real products that actually work (26:32)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Megan, follow her on Instagram @megfel, follow Lionne on Instagram @lionne.co or visit them online at lionne.co to connect with a skincare expert.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Fear is a universal experience for all of us,  whether it is physical or emotional. Fear forms a stronghold within our hearts and brains, latching itself onto every fiber of our being. Unconsciously, fear can push us to create coping mechanisms that do more harm than good to our brains, souls and hearts.

I have recently returned from a 30 day retreat completely focused on healing all the things that lingered and kept me in fear-based responses.. I had to face things I shoved to the back of my mental closet, yet I realized that I was super fortunate to be able to dive deeper than ever before.

Tune in as I  talk about what I focused on, what I learned as a result, and how I emerged clearer and more courageous. I hope this episode inspires you to do your work, show yourself empathy, and understand that we are all just bozos on the bus. Here’s to  finding the courage to finally unzip the luggage hiding in the bottom of our emotional closets and unpack what lingers there.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

No one ever wants to hear that someone they know is diagnosed with a disease like Alzheimer’s - especially not when that someone is your loved one. Walking hand-in-hand with your loved one down the winding road of dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the toughest emotional rollercoasters imaginable.

Oftentimes, those of us charged with becoming a caregiver can feel completely isolated, alone, and misunderstood by the world around us. Finding healthy, sustainable, and manageable ways to cope and connect with ourselves and the world around us is, at times, the only light amid the darkness.

This week, I am delighted to welcome Marty Schreiber to the table. After serving as the 39th Governor of Wisconsin, Marty retired from public office to become a full-time caregiver for his beloved wife Elaine, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease almost 20 years ago. He is an Alzheimer’s Disease caregiver advocate and author of My Two Elaines. He is passionate about speaking out to help caregivers and their loved ones live their best life possible.

We hope this episode provides caregivers with some relief and lets you know that we see you. And if you are not a caregiver, we hope this episode gives you some insight into the long journey caregivers take with their loved ones.

Here’s what we connect on:

• Marty shares his tips and what he wishes he would have done after spending almost 20 years as a caregiver, including how to join your loved one’s world, while also learning how to cope as a caregiver (6:00)
• How Connection lives at the heart and center of coping as a caregiver (17:34)
• Marty explains the backstory to his book + how he found joy with both Elaine's (23:08)
• The importance of finding ways to keep consistent self-care as a caregiver in order to keep caring for your loved one (26:07)
• Avoiding turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms and how caregivers can avoid that (29:42)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Marty, visit him at mytwoelaines.com and order My Two Elaines everywhere books are sold.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

It’s no secret we are big fans of Connection around here. Connection is the heartbeat of the human experience - without it, we simply cannot survive. However, Connection is most vital in times of great vulnerability, sacred openness and opening your soul to yourself and others.

These deeply vulnerable times are most recognizable today when walking down the long, never-straight-and-narrow path to recovery. Behind the doors of our recovery meeting rooms, Connection is one thing that binds us all together and makes our bonds with those around us indescribable. To put it plainly, Connection is the gold thread that runs between every single person, making us all one thing - fully human.

This week, I am so excited to welcome Sheri Young, author of the book Relapse Roller Coaster: Alcoholic Delusion to Spiritual Clarity, to the table. Sheri struggled with her relationship with alcohol throughout her life, including 40 years of executive experience in the world of politics, public service and business. By harnessing the power of Connection, Sheri has been able to completely change her life and find true healing and recovery.

In today’s episode Sheri and I dive deep on the true power of Connection to self, others and your Higher Power, and how that deep Connection to the universe around you can truly change your life.

Here’s what we connect on:

• Putting our egos aside when hitting rock bottom + surrendering to God (3:27)
• Digging deep into our roots (literally and spiritually) to connect with ourselves, others and our Higher Power to lead with self compassion (6:48)
• How a lifelong journey and God’s divine plan towards recovery has led Sheri to positively impact others (11:42)
• Learning the art of letting go and accepting the gift of desperation to cause change in our recovery journey (15:46)
• How connection and alignment to self and others can lead us to living in the “Zone of Miracles” (18:04)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Sheri, visit her at surthrive.life to check out all kinds of resources including her podcast and purchase Relapse Roller Coaster: Alcoholic Delusion to Spiritual Clarity everywhere books are sold.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Did you know that more than half of Americans love someone who is struggling with an addiction? As some of you may know, September is National Recovery Month. But when thinking of recovery, there are so many other beautiful “r words”: rest, restoration, redemption and renewal to name a few.

I was raised in a family where significant generational patterns surrounded alcoholism. Addiction is a disease of relationships, which affects family members incredibly deeply. The disease shows up and embeds itself on all of the family members - not just the one struggling with an addiction.

Saying “I am in recovery” was no easy thing to accept. There have been moments I abandoned myself, times I chased things that would take me out of myself, and times I was tremendously disconnected from myself. Recovery continues to teach me to let go of all control mechanisms to find that at the intersection of desperation and gratitude is hope and freedom.

As I lean deeply into the power of connection for recovery, these are the pillars I hold to be true:

• I live from a place of joy and gratitude at all times.
• I share my story candidly to help others own theirs.
• I have more questions than answers.
• I feel God’s presence everywhere.
• I know that life is messy.
• I believe leadership is a sacred calling and that we lead in all parts of life.
• I walk a spiritual path, move my feet forward to do hard things and anchor myself in a loving God who rides shotgun with me.
• I believe in the power of “we” - there is a healing bond in hearing the words “me too”.
• I understand that acceptance is a superpower that allows others to walk their own path
• I absolutely love the power of the table celebrating communion which leads to redemption.

I hope this episode has brought light to the darkness of addiction in a real, honest way. As the Buddhists say, “no mud, no lotus.” Finding your way out of the mud can feel impossible at times, but know that recovery is always possible. We are leaving a light on for you and saving you a seat. Thank you for joining us this week.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Sobriety can be a miraculous and challenging  change for someone stuck in the throws of addiction. It turns everything you once thought you knew upside down, inviting  you to see the world in a new light and step into radical wellness.

Sobriety is certainly not a journey for the faint of heart.. It is not a one-time put-down-the-thing type of deal. It is a one-day-at-a-time deep dive into emotional, spiritual, and relational healing and humility.  The heartbeat of sobriety is honesty, openness, willingness and a lot of surrendering of control.

This week, I am delighted to welcome David Hampton to the table. David is an author of two books, host of The Positive Sobriety Podcast, and a certified professional recovery coach. As a result of his own recovery he not only confronted his own alcoholism and the wreckage it caused. He redefined his spiritual understanding, coming away as a renewed man with a story to share: a story found at the intersection of desperation and gratitude.

David and I tackle how difficult it can be, and critical it is,  to look within to achieve transformative wellness and freedom in sobriety. Join us as we talk about life after the miracle and how it is a daily journey into wholeness.

Here’s what we connect on:

• How putting down the numbing substances is only the first step on the long journey to recovery + the disruptive nature of sobriety (2:15)
• The true meaning of “getting well” in the context of sobriety (7:45)
• Choosing wellness + finding the honesty and strength throughout sobriety to fight for your wellness (14:07)
• I share an incredibly symbolic story of the impact and wreckage of addiction (16:06-18:24)
• The addictive and toxic culture that promotes comparative thinking on social media today (22:58)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with David, visit him at www.davidhamptoncprc.com and purchase his books, After the Miracle and Our Authentic Selves, everywhere books are sold.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.

Did you know that 21 million Americans today are struggling with addiction? Overdose deaths have more than tripled in the last 20 years. Countless individuals, maybe even someone in your world, is struggling today whether you know it or not.

On this episode of Saving You A Seat, I have the pleasure of sitting down at the table with Sam Davis. Sam is in long-term recovery and is an intervention professional who has been performing interventions for over a decade, assisting thousands of families on their road to recovery. He is here today to share his story and discuss all things recovery with us.

Sam and I get real and raw about our experiences with addiction, bringing you perspectives from both the addict and the family. We talk about how the disease of addiction creates chaos and wrecks relationships. And we are very clear that until someone changes the dance steps, nothing changes. Join us as we talk honestly about how people and families recover from the intergenerational patterns of addiction and trauma. You don’t want to miss Sam’s story because he is truly a walking miracle who shines the lantern of recovery on the path for others.

I hope this episode brings you hope amid the sorrow and light amid the darkness if you or someone you love is struggling with addiction.

Here’s what we connect on:

• Sam openly and honestly shares his story, beginning with his generational childhood trauma, with us (2:03)
• Discussing the difficult position family members can be in when having a loved one who is struggling with addiction (17:33)
• Accepting that there is deep emotional damage that needs to be resolved even after putting the substances down (21:48)
• Finding hope and moving forward realistically after spending countless hours journeying towards recovery (29:34)
• Learning how to mend relationships and show up for those who we love as someone in recovery (32:24)

Thank you so much for saving a seat for us this week! Please rate this podcast and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode!

To connect with Sam, visit him at www.interventiononcall.com where you can find an interventionist that would be the right fit for your family. You are not alone, help is out there and recovery is possible.

To connect with Karen, follow her on social media: @karenjhardwick and visit connectedleaderbook.com to order The Connected Leader today.